Teacher thankful for life after heart attack

Five days after giving birth to triplets, Palmetto Elementary teacher Kimberly Effert woke from a dream that she was late for a plane.

"I realized I couldn't catch my breath," she says. "I felt like I was going to be sick."

Effert thought she was having a panic attack. Upon rising from her bed to head to the bathroom, she fell to the floor and was unable to move.

"It was a half hour before we called EMS, because I had no clue I was having a heart attack," she says. "I didn't know the signs of a heart attack."

That was two years ago. Today, Effert still suffers from extenuating health problems following the heart attack. She can still vividly recall the details of the strange dream that preceded the attack.

She remembered running to meet her plane in a pristine airport and hearing her name called over the intercom. A lady grabbed her hand to pull her through security.

"As soon as I got to the doorway to get onto the plane, I grabbed the side rail and told the lady, ‘Hold on, I need to catch my breath.' The lady said to me, ‘No, we are all waiting for you; you need to come with us now.' As soon as my hand let go of hers, I woke up from my dream," she recalls.

When Effert later described the woman to her mother, she learned the description fit her great aunt, who had previously passed away.

After EMS arrived at Effert's house, she looked at the technician and said, "Am I going to die? I have five children and a husband I need to take care of."

The tech told her, "We are going to do everything we can for you."

In the ambulance, Effert heard EMS issue a code ‘Save-A-Heart.' She says there is a 45-minute window from the time a heart attack starts until there is nothing medical personnel can do for the patient and Effert had wasted 30 minutes at home, before calling EMS.

"Once at the hospital, I was surrounded by doctors," she recalls. "The nurse put an oxygen mask on me and I started spinning. This is when I flat-lined."

Effert flat-lined four times. Medical staff at NCH used an automatic external defibrillator to bring her back.

"When I woke after surgery, I had burns on my chest and back," she says. "I had no idea what was going on."

Once Effert was back, the doctors rolled her to the catheterization lab. She saw her husband and two young sons on the way. The doctors wanted to do open heart surgery, but were unable to so since she had delivered her triplets by C-section just five days prior.

Although Effert had a fairly normal pregnancy, the doctors found her aorta had torn during that time. She says there have only been 13 cases like hers, and only two or three were not fatal.

"The surgeon put five stints in my artery," she says.

The triplets turned two, Dec. 26, 2008. Kylee and Kayla are identical, with brown hair and brown eyes and Emily is fraternal, with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Effert says being a teacher has helped her stay organized as a parent of triplets. In return, raising triplets has improved her teaching skills.

"It's helped me to see the differences in how children learn," she says. "In my own girls, Emily is an explorer and likes to do things hands-on. Kylee picks up everything really fast. Kayla is like the average learner. In my classroom, I can see the same thing – I have four different groups of learners."

Effert also has two sons, Austin, 10, and Matthew, 9. She says the addition of three siblings at one time, coupled with her health problems has been challenging for them.

"My sons have grown up so fast because of this experience," she says. "I have been taken by ambulance from work four times with chest pains, and of course, they get nervous. I want them to enjoy their childhood. They are the best big brothers I could ask for. They love their sisters and do puppet shows with them."